


Request & Rebuke

by Theoroark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: Prompt:FireFareeha and Gabriel's relationship, over the years.





	Request & Rebuke

None of the staff would talk to Fareeha about anything important, not wanting it to get back to her mother. But she was clever and they slipped up. She could tell that among the Overwatch staff, Uncle Gabe was viewed with a slight suspicion. She could not tell if this came from jealousy or if it had a more substantial basis in their minds. But she knew that Uncle Gabe had never lied to her. If there was something he really didn't want to tell her, he might omit it: like when they played mancala, he would watch her make a mistake and then smugly tell her, "You made a tactical error," as he swiped a rich pocket of gems. But he never lied to her outright. She trusted him.

 

So, after her 6th grade eye exam she headed straight for his office, sat down in front of his desk, and asked, "How did you get into the enhancement program?"

 

She got a second of shocked honesty before he switched to omission. "Why do you ask?" he asked carefully, no hint of the fear that had been on his face a moment earlier.

 

Fareeha chewed on her lip. She had thought her mother's confinement of the topic to overheard asides and tipsy jokes to Uncle Gabe and Commander Morrison about steroids was due to her mother's hang ups about speaking openly on the military with Fareeha. But if Uncle Gabe did not want to talk about it either...

 

Still, she had started this, and her mother had always told her to finish what she started. "I mean like, when did you do it? What was it like?"

 

"Fareeha." Uncle Gabe sounded quite tired and she winced. "I'm not going to answer any of your questions until you answer mine. Why do you want to know?"

 

She looked up at him. He looked tired, too, but not mad. It was a fair question, all things considered.

 

"I need glasses," she said. Uncle Gabe waited for her to continue and when she didn't, he frowned.

 

"And...?"

 

"A lot of the programs I want to apply for require perfect vision," Fareeha said. She had already been composing this pitch. Uncle Gabe would be a good test run for her mother. "My mom got a procedure done. So I don't think it's unreasonable for me to look into similar opportunities, in order to keep my options open."

 

"Oh, Fareeha," Uncle Gabe said. It was the worst possible response. She sank down in her chair.

 

"I don't get the big deal," she muttered. Uncle Gabe sighed and took a bag of candy corn out of a desk drawer. He pushed it towards her. She ignored it.

 

"Fair enough." He grabbed a handful and ate them as he spoke. "Fareeha, it's not a matter of denying you opportunities. It's giving you the ones we didn't have."

 

"Did my mom tell you to say that?" He laughed in surprise, then choked a little on his candy. Fareeha allowed herself a small smile.

 

"It's true, Fareeha."

 

"But?" He said nothing and pushed the bag towards her again. She smiled fully and took some.

 

"I can't believe she knew I'd come here," she muttered as she ate. Uncle Gabe smiled wryly.

 

"You're about as good at hiding what you're thinking as you are at seeing long distances," he said. She threw a candy corn at his head and he laughed. "And really, Fareeha. She's right."

 

"Oh yeah?" Fareeha leaned forward on his desk. "Would you have gotten into Overwatch if you didn't do the program?"

 

"No," he said, not even trying to evade this time. She crossed her arms.

 

"I don't get it, then."

 

"Fareeha, plenty of people have gotten into Overwatch without having to go through what Jack and I went through." She frowned at that, but he did not seem upset. "And there are plenty of people who are doing amazing work outside of Overwatch."

 

"Yeah, but–"

 

"You'd be a terrible sniper." She stopped, mouth slightly open, and he held up his hands. "I don't mean that as an insult. I would be too. And I think I do alright for myself." Fareeha nodded. "That's something your mom worries about, and something I agree with. You should keep your eyes open for other paths outside the ones we've led. You can do better than us. And I'm not just saying that in an abstract, anything is possible way." He took another handful of candy corn, then pushed the bag back to Fareeha. "I know you. And I'd be very surprised if you didn't grow up to be amazing at whatever you choose to do. It's just important to, you know, actually choose."

 

Sometimes, with her mother's past saying one thing and her mouth saying another, Fareeha had difficulty telling the correct way to make her proud. Her father was simpler, but sometimes he felt painfully small next to her mother and her friends. The Overwatch staff could mumble under their breath about Uncle Gabe dissembling all they liked but with her, he had always made his feelings clear around her: like when she beat him at mancala, parroting back "You made a tactical error," in that same smug tone, and he would laugh and congratulate her, and mean it.

 

"Okay," she said. She looked down in her lap and smiled. "Thanks."

 

"Don't mention it. And uh, look, kid. There's this thing called Lasik. It can fix eyes, and it's not a top secret government program, I can fly you to a strip mall your eighteenth birthday and you can get it done–" She threw another candy corn at his head and he laughed again.

 

-

 

She found Gabriel loitering in the parking lot of the mosque after the memorial. She had left earlier than the rest of her family, but after all the other mourners. She had told her family she needed to check in with her CO and her aunt had laughed hollowly and told her she didn't need to give excuses for anything she did, right now.

 

Gabriel was leaning against the trunk of a black sedan with tinted windows. He must have seen Fareeha approaching him, but he did not say anything until she leaned on it next to him.

 

"Is everything okay?" he asked, and when Fareeha raised an eyebrow he amended, "I mean, no one else is leaving right now–"

 

"Yeah. Yeah." She stuck her hands in her suit pockets and tilted her face up to the sky. She had always pictured funerals as being held in the rain but this was Egypt in the winter. It was dry and bright. "Just needed some air."

 

"Yeah." She rolled her head back around to look at him. He had aged much better than Commander Morrison, much better than her mother had. One could mistake him for being younger than his age. Even wearing a proper suit and tie, he still gave off the air of ratty hoodies and beanies.  

 

"You look like you should be smoking," she told him, and he laughed. She had always pictured someone smoking at a funeral. Not her, her older relatives had been put out enough at her tattoo. But someone. Probably Jesse.

 

"Back on the Strike Team, I made your mother quit smoking," he said. "It'd be poor tribute to do that now."

 

"She never told me that," Fareeha said. He laughed again, smaller this time.

 

"No, I guess she wouldn't have." He turned to face her and now she could see a bit of his age. "I'm sorry, Fareeha."

 

In her and her mother's fights about enlisting, Ana once had told her that she did not understand the sacrifices involved in war. When Fareeha had retorted that she would sacrifice anything for a just cause, Ana had told her that it wasn't what she would sacrifice, it was the sacrifices that would be made on her behalf. Her mother had not said anything about it to her, but Fareeha had been clever and she had slipped up. The nights after her mother's soldiers had funerals, she would wait in her bed for her mother to come back from her office, and would fall asleep waiting. The weeks after, she would wake up at 3 am to the lights on in the living room. Of all the arguments her mother had made, that had been the one to give her the most pause.

 

"It's not your fault," she told him. She was not sure what to say. She had not been able to help her mother and she hadn't seen Gabriel in a while. She doubted she could help him. But she wanted to try. "I know you must... Please don't blame yourself. If that's what you're doing. She would have... she knew what this was like. She knew what she was doing. You did your job and she did hers. You couldn't have known. It's not your fault."

 

He stared at her blankly. She had never felt younger.

 

"I'm so sorry, Fareeha," he said finally. "It shouldn't have happened. It's not going to happen again. I won't let it."

 

He had gone from vacant and empty to hoarse and angry. Fareeha closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him. No one else had been angry the entire service, but Uncle Gabe had always been honest about what he was feeling around her. Even when she wasn't allowed to.

 

-

 

"I thought there'd be more people here," Fareeha said. Jesse snorted, and she and Angela whipped their heads over to him in unison. He raised his hands in self defense.

 

"Didn't mean nothin' by it," he said. "Just, well. I know you've heard the stories."

 

"I have," Angela said. She turned back to the headstone and Fareeha wound her arm through hers and leaned on her shoulder. "But I knew Gabriel, and there were plenty of others who knew Gabriel. So there should be plenty of people who know it's bullshit."

 

"Well, maybe so. But there aren't plenty of people who've got such teflon reputations as us three."

 

He grinned and Fareeha snorted and looked around the cemetery. It was Los Angeles in the fall. It was still bright and dry. Angela had given Jesse a poisonous look the second he took out his cigar, so no one was smoking.

 

"What did happen, ya reckon?" Jesse asked. "We all don't buy the gas leak thing, do we?"

 

His tone was still casual and jovial, but he had never been much of a liar, off the clock. Angela sighed.

 

"I don't want to talk about that, right now," she said. Fareeha nodded and stroked her bicep. Jesse played with the brim or his hat.

 

"Things were bad when I left, you know."

 

"Jesse."

 

"Fareeha. It's okay," Angela said. "I've thought about it too. But he wouldn't be here if that's what he really thought."

 

Jesse looked down at the drought-brown grass. "Suppose you're right," he said. He still wasn't much of a liar, but Angela did not seem to be paying attention to him anymore.

 

She had worried about Angela the walk back to the parking lot, as they got into their rental car and Jesse got into his cab. She had worried about her over dinner, as Angela had chased pasta around with her fork and talked about her patients and their next vacation and anything but the explosion that had happened a year ago, today. She did not have time to think about herself until she was lying in bed that night, Angela asleep next to her.

 

Her mother's funeral had been the last time she had seen Gabriel. He had sent her a card congratulating her on her advancement in the academy, and she had been unsure how to respond. "Congrats on surviving Venice, with your job and your life"? "Congrats on avoiding court martial"?  "Congrats on that feature piece in US News, you didn't really torture people, did you"?

 

But Angela was right. She didn't really think it, couldn't really think it. She had waited and waited for the day when Commander Reyes would step out in a press conference and be his old self again. Now she waited for some newspaper to come out with a blaring headline clearing his name.

 

He had given so much to her, and she had not been able to help him any more than she had her mother. She felt selfish now, wanting him to hand her his honesty instead of the anger and omission he offered. It was not his fault that he was dead, or that she had more than enough anger of her own.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @tacticalgrandma if you want to talk to me there.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me!


End file.
